


Man-Made Made Man

by Shachaai, shadow_of_egypt (Shachaai)



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-24
Updated: 2011-04-24
Packaged: 2017-10-18 15:20:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/190247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shachaai/pseuds/Shachaai, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shachaai/pseuds/shadow_of_egypt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. When everything about you has been made by someone else, when you let yourself be <i>used</i> by someone else, are you still human, or are you a <i>thing</i>?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Man-Made Made Man

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings** , from the onset, for discussions, however implicitly, of suicide and murder, actual suicide and murder, human experimentation, genetic engineering, casually accepted discrimination/apartheid, violence (implied and actual), and some mild language. Basically – _not happy stuff,_ in any way, shape or form. Also – smoking, because that nettles people sometimes.
> 
> This is what happens when an old, mostly abandoned plotbunny stumbles head-on into a stray idea inspired by reading uakari’s ‘Steam’ and Shacha is…procrastinating from life, generally. It’s…an exploration of an idea, mostly; it’ll likely leave you with more questions than answers, and may or may not have a second part to continue it – I’m promising nothing. (Note to self: try writing just _one_ story at a time. More gets finished that way.)  
>  _Please_ read the warnings before continuing. Everything is mostly implicit, but _still._

“You’re still not dead yet.”

“And good _evening_ to you too, Kuro-chii.” The air is cold, cold, _cold_ today but Fai’s smile is colder, a quick sharp slant over his leather-clad shoulder to greet Kurogane’s intrusion into his world on high, turned back to the cigarette in his hand after the greeting’s been dropped to the wind. “Or do you prefer ‘Officer’ now?”

“Silence is usually better, when it comes to you.” Kurogane leaves the warmth of the building and lets the door swing shut behind him, coming closer to the edge of the platform where Fai is standing to join the blond man in looking down at the vast spread of the Complex so _very_ far below. (Fai has always had too much of an affinity for high places – always going higher, higher, _higher._ To the highest room, of the tallest tower, and even then always reaching for the sky. It’s one way to find the wisp of a man – creature – weapon – employee – file number, something the records have in common though practically nothing else is the same.)

“Charisma didn’t come with the promotion, then.”

Kurogane glares – but Fai only meets the dark look with a laugh, head tipping forwards as he rests his elbows on the platform railings. His cigarette drops lit embers down, ash like snow, and Fai breathes out smoke to make his own clouds for the day. Today, this week, this year both his eyes are blue.

“As scintillating a conversationalist as ever, Kuro-rin. One would think -” Fai pauses, then, for a heartbeat – below, in all the whiteness, one of the building’s doors has rolled open, three white vehicles slipping out from the interior and heading for the Complex gates. Fai’s lips curls for a flicker-flash of an instant, but when Kurogane looks at him the blond’s expression is carefully bland once more. “One would think, Kuro-tan,” Fai blithely continues, ignoring the meaningful stare his companion is aiming so precisely his way, “that after three years of searching for me you’d have more to offer than a comment on the blatantly obvious.” The consummate actor at work; Kurogane’s insulted to be regarded as a casefile.

“I was looking for your corpse.”

 _Another_ pause; this one has Fai drop the hand holding his cigarette from where he’d been raising it to his lips to take a drag at long bloody last – what’s the use of the idiot forking out so much for the damn things just to let them all burn away between gloved fingertips? “You overestimate my abilities.”

Kurogane shrugs, stiff, and though he doesn’t lean on the railing stands close enough to it to do so should he wish, close to Fai’s side where the warmth of another human would usually bleed through. But Fai – Fai’s all wrapped up in white fur and white leather, throat to fingers to toes, warm against the weather but so cold to everyone and everything else. As ever. “You’re a stubborn bastard.”

“Not stubborn enough, apparently.”

“No,” Kurogane says, and dismisses the soft ‘tch’ he gets from the man beside him, raises one hand to grasp the other’s chin. Fai flinches back, automatic, but he’s at the railing and Kurogane takes his face anyway, meets the blue glare he gets for the presumptive action with his own steady gaze. “You’re as stubborn as you want to be. And I’m wearing gloves.”

Fai doesn’t say a word, but his lips thin and he drops his cigarette, still lit, fluttering down, down, down to the Complex spread out like a puzzle below.

Kurogane hopes it burns something. “You’re still not dead yet.”

Fai _smiles_ for him at that, sweet and pale and refusing to meet the ice he’s taken for his eyes. Blue’s an oddly perfect choice for him – Kurogane can still remember the inhumanity of gold. “I’m working on it.”

 

#

 

(Kurogane first met a blond when he was seven. Blonde. She was a girl, younger than him, loose from her mother and wandering in the marketplace near where Kurogane lived. Youou, then. He’d been Youou, and he’d been buying vegetables because his mother had asked him to, and he’d seen the sun glinting off the little girl’s hair. A silence had fallen as she’d passed through, everyone in the nice neighbourhood giving the little blonde girl a wide berth, and Youou hadn’t understood. She’d been a tiny thing, and he’d never seen anyone – _thing_ – like her before.

She’d had the prettiest eyes – amber-almond – and a prettier smile, but no-one would go near her for ages and _ages_ until, eventually, a man had run out from somewhere in the crowd, scooping the little girl up into his arms. She’d smiled at him, babbled nonsense, and clutched at his shirt.

She’d been close to Youou then, close enough for Youou to see the man who’d picked up the girl, and realise it was his uncle. Kokuyo. Youou hadn’t seen him in a while, a few years, and he would’ve called out, but –

Kokuyo had saw him that day, and shook his head. Once. Youou hadn’t said anything, and his uncle and the little girl had disappeared again, back to where they’d come from.

The following morning Guards and one Officer from the Complex had come to Youou’s home, and kindly explained to Youou’s parents that Kokuyo and his family had died the night before. A tragic house fire that had claimed the lives of everyone in the building – Kokuyo, his wife, and their little girl.

The Officer had kindly suggested that Youou’s parents go for a check-up at the nearby clinic, and then he’d left. The Guards had hung around the neighbourhood for a while; the neighbours watched the men from the Complex behind their curtains.

Youou’s parents took him to the clinic – just a health-test, nothing special – and it took ages, and ages, and ages and they did weird tests, funny tests but eventually the doctors there let them all go. It had been _boring._

Youou hadn’t understood why his parents looked so angry and so relieved at the same time. They hadn’t wanted to talk about the Guards or the check-up or the tests, so he’d asked them, instead, about the little blond girl with the amber-almond eyes he’d seen, and his uncle.

His parents had held him closely, and then very seriously told him not to ask about those things ever again.)

 

#

 

“So are you assigned to me, or just stalking me for fun?”

It’s a month and a half after the meeting amongst the clouds when Kurogane sees Fai again, the blond phasing back into existence with a smile after having vanished into thin air for six weeks, two days and three hours. (The records have minutes and seconds; Kurogane isn’t quite so anal as to have noted those yet.)

Fai smiles at him, lazy and leaning back against the wide glass window that decorates this particular (otherwise empty) lounge Kurogane’s found him in. They can see out, see the budding spring sunshine coming out to bathe the spread of the Complex in beautiful warmth, but no-one can see into Containment from outside. (No-one can see into most of the sections.) Emerald, in the distance, touches the sapphire rim of the sky, beyond all the wait to the faintest promise of the green, green grass and the shimmer-white City beyond it.

Kurogane just shakes his head at him. “I’m not your Officer.”

“So you’re my stalker, then,” Fai says it with the same wryly amused look in his eyes that he’s always reserved for Kurogane, his arms loosely folded across his chest. He’s in white again, accented blue, a loose, long-sleeved shirt that covers his gloved knuckles and comes half-way down his thighs. Indoor and airy, his hair as mussed as if he’s just come in from the wind. “That’s cute, Kuro-kun. I’ve never had a stalker before.”

“That you know about.”

“ _Hyuu_ – are you stalking my Officer as well?” Fai ‘whistles’ the same as he did three years ago; Kurogane can remember a long languid afternoon on the riverbank back then and Fai pursing his lips again and again, nothing coming out but the mangled _hyuu._ Eventually Fai had dissolved into helpless laughter in the grass – and then a shriek, when Kurogane had pushed him into the water nearby. “Kuro-do has such dedication for his dirty hobbies. Please don’t scare him _too_ much with your scary glower though, alright? I actually like this one; he brings me cookies that his sister makes and says nice things about me in his reports.”

Kurogane makes a face at him – he’s met Sumeragi. _And_ the sister. “I can’t imagine why.”

“Nor can I, really.” Fai sighs, tilts his head to the side so his cheek rests against the cool window. Maybe he likes this lounge, this view, this window. Kurogane doesn’t know – he’s new to the Inner Complex, new to being an Officer, and he hasn’t yet even reached the status where he’s allowed back into the outside world. He has to gain the trust of those above him, trust not to spill secrets when he sees new secrets unfolding around him every day. He’s not even really supposed to be in the Containment section as often as he is – Containment, the section where Fai survives (when it comes it comes to Fai, it certainly isn’t _living_ ) when he’s within the Complex grounds. “That’s why I like him.”

“I heard over the television,” Kurogane says, abruptly switching the topic. Fai doesn’t look at him, doesn’t move his gaze away from whatever he can see out the wide, wide window. Fai, framed by the endless sky. “One of the City’s Upper Denizens has died recently; he owned the company that creates the key mechanism for the re-ventilation systems – they think it may be poison, since he was supposed to be in good health.” Fai closes his eyes. “Was that you?”

Silence.

“Is that where you’ve been for six weeks?”

The spring sunshine leaves shadows on Fai’s face, glimmer-gold lashes over white cheeks smudged with pink. See no evil; hear no evil; speak – “Kuro-chama, do you think I’d look pretty if my eyes were brown?”

“Idiot -”

“I’ve been practically every colour but brown, you know – red, green, purple, gold, blue… People say I look good with blue eyes, but do you think I’d look better with brown?”

Kurogane remembers this game of Fai’s. Remembers it perfectly, much to his own disgust. Fai can side-step subjects beautifully, wander off into wonderful tangents at a whim and take all attempts at conversation with him. He’d been trained in rhetoric (by the Complex, of course; all the inmates – creatures – employees are trained in rhetoric, but his report shows he’s still ranked among the very best). Fai is good at many things, because people (things) with golden hair are conditioned to have silver tongues.

(For the Officers of the Inner Complex, it’s a double-edged sword.)

 _“Fai,”_ Kurogane says, and the sound of the name startles Fai enough to drop whatever inanity he’d been about to say, the eyes in question (please forget me forget-me-nots) fluttering open to look at the Officer in the room. Kurogane has never been one for names. “Fai – _why?”_

“You…” Fai starts, stands straight and rises away from the window, bites his lower lip for an instant before sighing again in a long rush of breath. “Kuro-myu, you won’t ever get assigned someone like me if you keep asking such uncomfortable questions. And that’s what you want, right? Someone like me?”

(Someone _exactly_ like me.)

The question’s a stupid one, and both of them know it.

Fai’s jaw tightens slightly and he breathes deeply – too easily, Kurogane supposes; the cigarettes mustn’t be having their intended effect. “You’re in the Conservation section, aren’t you?” Kurogane is. “You should see my Officer, and ask him to formally introduce you to his sister. Ask them if Hokuto-chan will escort you to the main dome on the seventh floor -”

“Those are the Education facilities,” Kurogane interrupts, and tries not to wince at the thought of spending time with the… _vivacious_ young lady called Sumeragi Hokuto. “I don’t have clearance to be on that level.”

“You can go there under escort,” Fai corrects him, quickly, with information clearly learned by heart. “To the Observation Deck and attached corridor, anyway. Hokuto-chan will know why you’re there; she’ll know when to take you.”

“Why don’t _you_ just-?”

“I,” Fays says, and then moves forward suddenly, to one of the low couches around the room, reaching for a white jacket Kurogane hadn’t noticed lying there. He doesn’t look at Kurogane, too busy yanking the clothing on. “I have to go away again for a little while; I might have another job to do.”

“‘Might’?”

“They’re still deciding.” Something small and square is tossed Kurogane’s way then – the Officer reaches out a hand to catch it before it hits his face, hearing the soft rattle of the box he now holds in his hand. Fai’s cigarettes. The box is half-empty. “Look after those for me?” Kurogane just looks at Fai, and waits for an explanation. “The guy on this job – he doesn’t like smokers.”

 

#

 

(Elda and Freya were very polite, and very, very sweet. They were also incredibly smart for seven year olds. They were blonde, and they were the adopted twin daughters of Ichiro and Chitose Mihara, close friends of Youou’s parents.

Youou learned all these things in reverse order, handed into the care of the girls and told to go off and play while the adults were talking, Youou’s parents with Mihara Chitose. (Ichiro, as ever to the children, was at work.) Youou, then ten-and-a-half, was rather put out at being so easily dismissed, but Freya took one of his hands and Elda the other, and the two dragged him off (they were surprisingly strong) to show him the new litter one of the household cats had recently given birth to.

Elda’s hair was almost long enough to kneel on, the little girl bending down to play with a grey-spotted kittens tumbling all over the floor. She seemed perplexed when Youou asked about where she had come from – Youou had visited the Miharas the month before with his parents, and the girls hadn’t been there then.

“We were adopted to help Mama,” Elda told him. “Since she isn’t very well a lot. Mama doesn’t like nurses, but she likes us.”

“But,” Youou was just as confused, unused to the strangeness of these adopted girls. Why would the Miharas adopt people who were so weird? _Everybody_ knew blondes were bad luck; Youou’s friends at school had always said so. “But your hair is gold. Nobody looks like you.”

“Isn’t that normal?” Elda’s eyes were very wide, a pretty brown. The kitten she was playing with _mew_ ed, nudging the girl’s fingers with its fluffy head. “Where we come from, lots of people look like us. Lots and lots.”

“What about your other mother?” Youou asked. Perhaps the Miharas could send these two back, and get some ordinary people instead. “Is she still there?”

“We don’t have another mother,” Freya said, interrupting the conversation. She’d been sitting quietly by, playing with two more kittens, but when she spoke Elda fell immediately silent. “Nobody but Mama.”)

 

#

 

“All of this area’s mine, if you can believe it. Officer Sumeragi Hokuto, Head of Early Conservation Education, ECE.”

Kurogane isn’t really listening to his guide of the day; he’s too busy looking through the one-way windows lining the otherwise empty hallway they’re walking along (‘shift-change time,’ Hokuto had said, ‘it should be just us’), fascinated by room after room full of children at their lessons – ABCs through to advanced literature, basic numbers to physics and languages and anatomy and philosophy. Babies, carefully rocked by watching nurses, toddlers arguing over crayons, children playing ball-games, teenagers writing poetry, young adults working through an equation at the front of the class.

Conservation has a brighter atmosphere than Containment in every way, the floor devoted to the Education facilities especially so – the colour scheme is more varied, pastels and butter-cream, splotches of light to catch the eye and lighten the mood, wide windows letting in the sunlight. It’s…it feels _warm._

“They’ve tried to promote me a few times; they wanted me to take the overall Head’s position when the old guy moved up the food-chain and tried to _force_ me into that when I said no – can you believe it? But I _kept_ saying no and Subaru was a _darling_ and told them he’d resign from his work in Containment if they promoted me without my consent; you have to volunteer to work over in that section, you know, especially when you’re working with the more volatile employees. They can’t afford to lose him, so they promoted the Head of LCE instead. It’s the best of both worlds! The new girl’s really good at the job, and I really like working so closely with the children in _this_ area; they’re the sweetest things, sometimes -”

Hokuto pauses mid-ramble, and it’s the silence that _finally_ draws Kurogane’s attention to her, to sharp green eyes and a knowing expression.

“This is your first time seeing so many of them at once,” she asks without preamble, hitting the nail perfectly on the head, “isn’t it?”

Kurogane…just nods.

Never has it been made so obvious to him before that the Complex is a fully functioning not-so-miniature city, room after room after room coming into sight full of bustling, busy life. Kurogane, working in the Correction area of the Conservation section, sees maybe twenty new people a day (and that’s if it’s busy), but here…

Most of the students and their teachers are blonde. Here and there there’s a darker head of hair – the children of Officers, born and raised in the Complex as a bar to compare the other children against, Officers at the front of the class teaching where others are too busy, elsewhere or sick. Room after room after room, most ‘born’ in the Complex, carefully bred or engineered, a small few discovered outside and brought in –

For so many of them, this is their _everything._ Most of the kids here look _happy –_ as happy as they could be learning geometry, anyway -, nothing at all like the sullen-eyed figures who haunt Containment, wandering around like living ghosts. Containment has children too, but the classes are smaller, the teachers all Officers, stricter and sharper and on guard, always on guard, covered from head to foot.

In one of the windows Kurogane watches a teenage girl deck a boy who’d been pulling her hair, the two starting a brawl on the floor. The teacher hurries across to break the two apart and give them both a verbal lecturing, keeping them apart with a hand on each of the miscreants’ shoulders. Containment, instead of lectures, uses immediate sedation. No contact. (Maybe it’s no wonder Fai’s the way he is.)

“Come on.” Hokuto speaks after a few more minutes of watching Kurogane watch the classes through the windows, laying a hand on the taller Officer’s arm to gain his attention once more. She has neat manicured nails; they’re painted pink and blue and have white stars on them, matching the large star-spangled bow on her head, and Kurogane realises, belatedly, that Hokuto really is little more than a girl, a child with her brother. And yet, to hold such a high position – had she been raised in the Complex, an Officer’s child? “What you wanted to see is a little further on.”

Kurogane raises an eyebrow, gestures at the row of classes. “This isn’t it?”

Hokuto just shakes her head, releasing her grip on the man’s arm. “This is impressive to someone who hasn’t seen it before, but I think what Fai-chan wants you to see is further on. I usually accompany him with Subaru, but sometimes he breaks in when he’s not supposed to…” she trails off, unusually pensive, before offering Kurogane a tired smile. “Come on.”

They walk on a little further along the corridor – the classrooms grow smaller along the way, quieter, one or two empty. They seem to be for more private tutoring – one room has a few girls practicing dancing, leaning heavily on a bar along one wall, another a small group of five practicing with what Kurogane thinks are electric violins. Another, even further along, is taken up almost entirely by a grand piano, a sweet-faced girl frowning in thought over the keys as her teacher leans over, pointing something out on the page she’s reading from, his hair, his face and easy smile catching the light and heart.

Kurogane stops without having to be told.

Hokuto nods. “That’s -”

“Fai,” Kurogane says, knowing the teacher’s face and _staring –_ because it’s been a while (such a while) since he’s seen the blond smile like that, laughing at something his student is telling him. The rooms are soundproofed; Kurogane suddenly dearly wants to know just what it is the girl has said to have Fai smiling, what Fai’s even doing in Conservation when he _should_ be out on a job like he’d said –

“No,” Hokuto says, and she steps in front of Kurogane, blocks the other Officer’s sight of the music room a little. “Officer, that’s not Fai-chan.”

“Of _course_ it is; I know what the idiot looks -” Kurogane cuts himself off. His mouth snaps shut, and Kurogane _looks_ at the man in the room before him, stepping past Hokuto to be nearer to the window.

‘Fai’ is slim, blond, blue-eyed, _there._ But his hair is longer than the Fai Kurogane has known (known and knows, since there is so much time missing in between) for seven – almost eight, now – years, hanging about the man’s face, dipping in between his shoulders. His smile, too, is so much more easy, more relaxed, and his stance is approachable and open – when has _Fai_ ever been so beautifully open? But most of all, most of all –

The man’s throat and arms and hands are bare; he’s in a v-necked t-shirt, grass-green and v-necked, and he thoughtlessly places his palms over the hands of his student, shifting the position of her fingers on the keys.  

He’s not Fai. Maybe in some other dream he _could_ be, but the man in the music room isn’t Fai, can’t be Fai, because if it _was_ Fai the man’s smile would be a lie and the idiot’s not that good a liar.

Kurogane stands and watches through the one-way window with Hokuto at his side, drinking in what-could-have-beens, waiting until the lesson draws to a close and ‘Fai’ and his student close the piano lid and leave.

The light flickers off behind them, and Kurogane turns to Hokuto. “Who is he?”

“He’s not mentioned in Fai-chan’s files?” The question’s a mild one, seeming innocent, but they both know Kurogane shouldn’t have read _any_ of Fai’s files, though their mutual acquaintance certainly has a good many. Kurogane just glares at the young woman beside him, and Hokuto sighs, folds her arms across her chest. “He wouldn’t be; not the lower-level ones, anyway. You know even Subaru isn’t qualified to look at some of Fai-chan’s files? How they expect _anyone_ to get any work done, honestly… Containment have everything about their _employees_ hushed-up; it’s ridiculous.”

“Who. Is. He?”

“I was _getting_ to that.” Hokuto’s tone sharpens, and she glares back at Kurogane. “You shouldn’t take such a rude tone with a lady -” Kurogane all but bites his tongue to refrain from commenting that he doesn’t see any _ladies_ present, “but since I’m such a kind and gracious person, I’ll deign to answer your question. Even though you asked it so _boorishly_. As a favour to Fai-chan – who knows _exactly_ how to treat a lady, I’ll have you know, and gentlemen too.”

Kurogane _also_ restrains himself from mentioning that a significant portion of both the ladies and gentlemen Fai associates with end up either sick or dead. Today is a lesson in restraint.

“He’s Yuui,” Hokuto eventually offers, “Yuui Fluorite. Since we don’t have any other Fluorites on record – yeah, your pretty boy doesn’t have a surname on _our_ files either – we can only infer it’s a first-generation name. It’s not odd; the scientists around here have weird whims at times. We had this guy called Pumpernickel once; he had this _adorable_ orange hat but it clashed horribly with his skin tone and – _right_ ,” the girl says, catching Kurogane eying her meaningfully. “Yuui. Well, he came out of the labs over at Conception when he was eight; the guys over there are the ones that named him and started his file off. He has no memory prior to waking up in his new rooms in the Conservation section – something he should _probably_ be thankful for considering, from what we can surmise from the rather sketchy details in his file about that time, he was used as the ‘normal’ base for whatever they did to Fai-chan. He has absolutely no idea what may or may not have gone on in Conception, and the higher-ups have decreed he is not to be informed of the dubious things he may or may not have very likely been involved in before he was moved to here. He doesn’t even know what I’m telling you now.”

Kurogane frowns. “Shouldn’t Fai share his surname by default?”

“Call Fai-chan Fluorite too, if you want,” Hokuto sounds… _flat,_ suddenly, and she’s completely without her smiles of before. “But Conservation and Containment are always at odds, Officer – you know that. Officially, we know nothing about the employees over there, and officially, Yuui Fluorite has no brother. We _think_ he’s Fai-chan’s brother, of course, those that know about them both – I mean, they share the same birthday; well, _one_ of Fai-chan’s birthdays, since his files are annoyingly unspecific about that detail. They both turned thirty-one just recently; although Yuui at least we know has been engineered to age more slowly, so he’ll probably look just a bit after twenty until he eventually goes grey – your guess is as good as mine if they did the same thing to Fai-chan. Yuui’s free of mental and muscle stimulants save the selection he was birthed with, though he has above-average intelligence for the Complex standard and has shown a great inclination for the arts in particular. He – let me _finish,_ Officer.”

Kurogane closes his mouth, having been ready to ask another question, but Hokuto’s glare is stony and not worth pushing further for curiosity that could be shortly answered.

Seeing his obedient silence, Hokuto continues. “Yuui hasn’t been sick a day in his life. It _seems_ like he’s resistant to every disease currently known to man, and regular check-ups show an exceedingly healthy immune system as well as a particular… _abnormality_ that makes him rather hard to cut. Or bruise. Or otherwise injure. If you punch him, you’re more likely to hurt your hand than his face.

He’s…fairly psychologically sound – as much as anyone is who teaches children regularly, anyway. He has expressed no desire to leave the Conservation section never mind the Complex grounds – although there is, in fact, a missive in place to actively _discourage_ him from doing so should he profess an interest, since he looks identical to one of our walking weapons and would probably cause an administrative nightmare. Also, he’s rather well-liked by the children here; he teaches music lessons for both the piano and violin, and has taken up the flute as a personal thing. When he isn’t teaching he spends a lot of his free time in the indoor gardens, either reading or practicing archery, and when he’s in the kitchen he bakes a mean soufflé. Seriously, it’s _good_.”

Kurogane looks at his slighter companion. “You’ve had to say this a few times.”

Hokuto just runs a hand back through her short hair, somehow avoiding messing up the placement of her bow. “Between Subaru and Fai-chan – _yes._ ” Kurogane almost pities her. “I can get you access to copies of his files if you want them – but that’s a silly thing to ask you, isn’t it, because of _course_ you want them. They didn’t come from me, got that?”

 

#

 

(When she was fifteen, Freya walked into the river nearby her home and drowned herself. Nobody knew why she did it – or, if they did, nobody would tell. The Miharas mourned her, burned her body and scattered her ashes to help the flowers grow, and everybody gathered at the wake afterwards and offered their sympathies to the family, sincere or otherwise.

Youou’s parents were among the gatherers, and with them was Youou. He wandered off after some time though, away from the other mourners, and found himself alone in the garden, sitting in the shade of a tree as afternoon turned to evening in the sky overhead.

Koryuu was younger than Youou by about two years; they kept vague track because they were vaguely related (someone’s cousin’s sister’s whatever) – not that either of them particularly gave a damn, as Koryuu thought Youou was a boring stickler for the rules, and Youou thought Koryuu was an irritating little shit. Among their reluctant circle of mutual acquaintances it was generally accepted that they were both right to some degree – but Youou was _more_ right, and always would be. Koryuu was an annoyingly jumped-up loud-mouth who thought a great deal too much of himself, and his – admittedly – handsome face didn’t excuse either his rudeness or his general attitude towards others.

To say Youou was somewhat disgruntled to have the quiet peace in the garden disturbed by _Koryuu_ would be a vast understatement.

“How long d’you think it’ll be before the other one follows her?”

Youou looked up at the sound of Koryuu’s voice – instinctively -, but Koryuu took that, and Youou’s silence, as a query, the younger youth jerking his head back at the Miharas’ home behind them, to one of the windows overlooking the garden. Elda and Fr- no, just Elda’s room. The now only child of the Miharas had locked herself away in there since her sister’s death, and wouldn’t come out.

“How long,” Koryuu asked again, “until that one tops herself to follow the other idiot? Fifteen’s pretty long for a _blonde;_ I’m surprised no-one’s torched this place to put them both down earlier. Must be all the cash the parents rake in -”

Youou only became aware he’d punched Koryuu when the initial haze of rage fled his mind, and the pain started setting into his clenched fist.

Koryuu, flat on his backside in a nearby flowerbed and bleeding from one corner of his mouth, still looked incredulous as Youou came down from his initial lunge, even as he raised one hand to touch the red on his lips, as if he couldn’t believe he’d been hit. Surprise quickly turned to anger. “How _d-”_

“ _Don’t,”_ Youou snarled at him, and Koryuu’s teeth actually _clicked_ as the bastard snapped shut his mouth, taken aback by whatever he saw on his relation’s face.

Don’t say anything; don’t move; don’t try and get up, or so _help_ him, Youou would _kill_ the other teen.

Elda – Freya and Elda…he’d seen them a lot over the years. Not closely, not even all that regularly, but enough for them to be loose acquaintances. They’d helped their mother when Chitose had bouts of sickness, aided the Mihara servants out shopping, always smiled and greeted Youou and his parents whenever they’d seen them. They’d laughed, played with kittens with Youou, offered to lend him some of their books and games and –

They were blonde, yes, but – but…but it was _different,_ somehow, because Youou knew them. And he knew Elda was upset, and could get hurt and cry, and now her sister was dead.

(And it was perfectly selfish but perspective meant _everything._ )

Koryuu apparently didn’t have the sense he was born with, one hand pushing into the dirt beneath him to push himself up, scowling. _“Bastard -”_

Youou hit him again. And again. And _again_ until a gloved hand suddenly came from the side and intercepted his fist, slim-strong fingers wrapped in black wrapping around his hand and drawing Youou’s attention away from Koryuu, up the arm attached to that invading hand, along a black-clad shoulder to gold hair and gold eyes.

The tall (taller) stranger smiled, a strangely tight expression. Youou looked at him blankly. “That’s quite a strong arm you’ve got there. Do you exercise a lot?”

Youou didn’t answer him, still blank.

The stranger’s smile didn’t drop; he had strange flecks in his eyes, brown and warm and not matching the sickle-curve on his lips at all. “You’re a talkative one, I see. Do you think if I let you go you could manage to restrain yourself from hitting the other boy again? He’s out cold already, and I’m sure there’s some sort of saying out there about how pointless it is flogging a dead horse.”

Youou thought he’d very much like it if the stranger let go of his fist so he could get back to turning Koryuu into a smear on the ornamental tiling.

“Please?” the stranger asked, reading something – correctly – in the mutinous set of Youou’s jaw. “I’ll buy you cake if you promise to play nice.”

Youou baulked. “I don’t like cake.”

“Ice-cream, then. Even someone as pouty as yourself has to like ice-cream.” Youou didn’t even notice when the stranger finally released his hand, too caught up in the confusing rush of anger, embarrassment and dismay the _idiot’s_ words brought with them. “Let me guess – you like vanilla?”

Youou sputtered – the crooked edge at the corner of the stranger’s mouth hadn’t been talking about _ice-cream;_ how the hell was he – what was he-?!

The blond only laughed at Youou’s flailing – _bastard –_ and Youou completely missed when another figure broke from the trees at the blond’s back – a Guard’s uniform – and headed towards the house, too busy yelling at the _still_ laughing idiot.

The Guard brings people out to Koryuu. By then Youou and the blond stranger are gone, the former chasing the latter out into the streets, determined to catch the weird bastard and _wring his neck._

He never achieves it, never so much as lays another _finger_ on the blond, but the stranger _does_ buy him ice-cream, and they end up walking back to the wake together, the stars coming to life in the sky overhead.)

 

#

 

When Kurogane leaves Conservation and steps out into fresh air he lights one of Fai’s cigarettes, fishing the box out from an inner pocket of his jacket to set flame to one, takes a drag. He’s not too sure why he does it – it’s a whim of the moment; it’s been years since he last smoked and the smoke catches the back of his throat uncomfortably, makes him cough into his fist.

Hokuto, still at his side, looks first at the box, and then at Kurogane disapprovingly. “You shouldn’t smoke those; they’ll kill you.”

Kurogane – prepared this time – just raises the cigarette to his lips once more, remembers the old pattern of draw, hold, blow, smoke in his mouth and throat and lungs, destruction working inside-out. Burning cash for someone who has no other way to burn, too ‘perfect’ a veneer, gilded nightshade.

Fai’s head is a screwed-up place to live.

 

#

 

(The stranger began to appear in Youou’s life more often after Freya’s death, a pale figure on the edges that Youou didn’t quite know how to deal with. Fai, his name was - _Fai,_ the only word Elda would say some days as she cried about her sister, seeking comfort from the other blond who came to visit her. Youou visited her as well and stood awkwardly to the side while Fai murmured soothing words, the older male sitting on a couch opposite her and leaning forward in sympathy. Youou didn’t know why Fai never sat beside her, why Fai never hugged Elda like the look on his face so clearly said he wanted to – Fai was strange. Stranger than strange.

Fai was from the Complex.

Everybody knew where the Complex was – far beyond the city and the grass, buildings of white that shone blankly under both cloud and sun. The Guards were trained there – a lot of them worked there, too – and –

“I owe you ice-cream,” Youou told Fai one day, as they were leaving the Mihara house, making to split up and silently part ways as they always did when they ended up at Elda’s home at the same time. Fai’s Guard wasn’t there that day, a tall man all in black who simply _looked_ through everybody, so Youou had found the strength to find his tongue, stating his point and stopping Fai in his tracks.

Fai looked at him, confused. “Ice-cream?”

“You bought me ice-cream,” Youou told him, slowly, letting Fai know Youou thought he was an idiot.

“That -” Fai started, let a smile flicker to his lips, far too indulgent for Youou’s liking. Fai looked at Youou as if Youou were a child – how _old_ was the idiot, to think he could look at Youou that way? Youou was eighteen, verging nineteen, almost the same height as the gold prat who intervened in fights where he didn’t belong. “Youou-kun,” Fai said gently, “that was a gift.”

Youou just bristled at him. “That was an attempted _bribe,_ and my father taught me better than to accept _those._ ”

Fai’s smile dipped, dropped curiously, but something new touched his eyes – a spark of amusement, veiled mischief, only marginally better than indulgement. “So this is a matter of honour then?” His companion nodded, stiff. “ _Saa_ , for someone who hates sweet things as much as you do you certainly take your ice-cream seriously, Youou-kun. Will there be pistols at dawn should I refuse?”

“If you refuse,” Youou snapped, “the next time I see you I’m going to shove a tub of ice-cream in your _face._ ”

Fai laughed at him –laughing, he _always_ seemed to be laughing – and Youou bristled further. He took the idiot for ice-cream though, determined to repay his debt and then leaned on the wall outside the parlour, eating their cones. Fai pulled off his gloves to lick the trail of melting ice-cream that trickled down over his fingers, green and brown, mint and chocolate and sticky-cold. When he saw Youou watching him he stuck out his tongue, pink and impudent.

Youou ignored him, and went back to his vanilla. “Where’s your Guard today?”

His companion shrugged. “I wasn’t on official business today, so he’s got the day off.”

“They let people as dumb as you wander around without a nanny?”  
Fai pouted. “Youou-kun, if for one moment I thought you meant that, I could be genuinely hurt.”

“I _do_ mean it!” Youou _growled_ at the other’s smile, moodily taking a bite out of his ice-cream to get rid of the damn cone quicker and immediately regretting it, his teeth _aching_ their complaint at the sudden burst of icy-cold. Youou winced – but ate more of his ice-cream, being sure to eat a little more carefully with his next bite. “...’The hell is it that you _do,_ anyway?”

“I’m a spy!”

 _“Bullshit._ ”

“I’m a teacher.”

Youou looked consideringly at Fai for a long moment – the blond had moved onto eating the cone part of his treat at last, chasing the ice-cream that had slipped down from the top, thoroughly occupied in savouring the dessert to its last. “…No.”

Fai sighed. “Youou-kun is never happy.”

“Tell the truth.”

“I’m a dancer.”

“What dances do you do?”

“Whatever people want me to.”

Youou finished his ice-cream, and brushed the flaky pieces left from where he’d been holding the cone off on his trousers, rubbing his fingers together and feeling them stick, slightly, for half a second. “What do you do?”

Fai mimicked him, popping the last of his cone into his mouth. Youou heard it crunch. “I kill people.”

“Are you lying to me again?”

Fai glanced at him, amused again but sharper that time, wiping down his own hands and sliding his black gloves back on to cover up his hands. Youou had never seen him without them; Fai’s hands were probably very soft. “Youou-kun assumes I’ve lied to him.”

“You’ve never _stopped_ lying to me!” Fai only smiles once more – gold and golden, an adult to a child – and Youou snarls at him. “ _Fine._ How do you kill people?”

 “By making them like me.” What a strange conversation to have outside an ice-cream parlour. A few people passing by looked at the two males – men – having such a strange standoff outside, not enemies, not friends, not strangers, but not _not_ anything at all.

Youou still thought he was lying. “Why don’t you kill me? I know your secret.”

Fai blinked at him. He had long lashes – he had looks better suited to a _girl._ (No wonder Elda liked him.) “If it was such a secret, Youou-kun, why would I tell you in the first place?”

Youou just gritted his teeth, and clenched his fist at his side. “ _Will_ you kill me one day?”

“That depends,” Fai told him, leaned in dangerously and reminded Youou so strongly of the garden at Freya’s wake, black gloves touching the blood on Youou’s fist. It had been strangely peaceful – Youou, the strange stranger, and evening’s start. All else had been shadows, even then. “Will you ever like me?”

“ _Never,”_ Youou assured Fai, saw the click-clench tightness of Fai’s smile at his jaw. The idiot was a liar, through and through. “Never.”)


End file.
